Interest in the use of bacteriophage viruses has increased significantly in the last several years, but commercialization usage is still in the early stages. Resistance to antibiotics has driven the interest in bacteriophage medical therapy and the safety and efficacy of bacteriophage for food stuff sterilization and industrial applications has driven interest in these areas. Industrial applications such as remediation of bio-fouling in water systems, microbial induced corrosion (MIC) in water systems and especially in the oil and gas and pipeline industries have generated a need for adequate processes for large scale production of bacteriophage. See published applications US 2009/0180992, published Jul. 16, 2009 and US 2010/9243563 published Sep. 30, 2010.
For industrial applications the need is for relatively large amounts of phage, beyond the scope of laboratory production. Moreover, the concentration/proliferation of bacteriophage which exist in aqueous solutions in fairly low absolute concentrations requires processing a large amount of water.
This invention is an efficient continuous flow bacteriophage concentrator/proliferator which will concentrate bait bacteriophage from fluid in separate receptacles, while filter sterilizing the fluid into the appropriate media for a three way combination to proliferate the desired phages of viruses.